Over the past couple of years, one of the ski resorts that has been on the rise is Nordic Valley in Utah. Located near the city of Ogden, it added a huge terrain expansion during the 2020-21 season. However, the ski resort has been dealt a bad hand for this ski season.
Last week, Nordic Valley announced that the Apollo chairlift, which accesses the majority of the terrain at the ski resort, will be closed for “an undetermined period of time.” The Apollo chairlift suffered a mechanical breakdown back in March and has been closed since then. While dealing with the repairs, Nordic Valley’s maintenance team discovered further issues with the chairlift. With this being an older chairlift, finding the parts took an extended period of time due to the required customer engineering and manufacturing.
In response, Nordic Valley has acquired two Alpina Sleds to carry guests up to the Nordic Express and potentially to the top of the Apollo terrain pod. Each one of the Superclass 1.2L twin-tracked utility snowmobiles will be able to carry eighteen passengers. These people movers will be able to move 200 people per hour. I’m not gonna lie, those things look pretty sick.
It’s not all bad news for Nordic Valley though. They added two hundred parking spots, and two new trails to the Nordic Express terrain pod. Currently, Nordic Valley is open for the season with two trails and two lifts.
The ski resorts around Ogden are in a precarious situation. Snowbasin is an awesome ski resort, but it’s too expensive to visit unless you are a season/Ikon passholder. Powder Mountain just announced its plan to become a semi-private ski resort and has become more expensive this year (outside of night skiing tickets). Wasatch Peak Ranch’s future is in question after a judge ordered that the private ski resort stop construction and halt real estate sales.
Then there’s Nordic Valley. It’s an affordable ski resort with impressively cheap lift ticket deals and a brand-new terrain pod. What currently holds it back is the Apollo chairlift, which is the only way to reach the Nordic Express pod under normal circumstances. I’m a big fan of the place, and the Ogden skiing community needs this place to succeed.
My ultimate viewpoint is Nordic Valley’s future success depends on replacing Apollo. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fixed-grip or high-speed detachable chairlift, Apollo needs to be replaced within the next few years.
Image Credits: Nordic Valley, Alpina Snowmobiles
